


After Falling

by nom



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Jack Harkness/gravity, Jack/gravity, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-26
Updated: 2009-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-08 03:56:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nom/pseuds/nom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gravity meets Jack and plays with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/omnijaxual/profile)[**omnijaxual**](http://community.livejournal.com/omnijaxual/) community.
> 
> **Warning:** science and physics got lost on their way to this story.

Jack is falling, knowing this will hurt like hell, resenting the tower's crumbling masonry.

Gravity watches. Suicide or misstep, either way she takes those who fall into her embrace -- but she regrets that she never gets to feel them for more than moments. Too delicate and brittle, these human-creatures, she can barely touch them before they're gone. They do not rise in gusts of wind like fallen leaves, they have no wings to fight her with. The minority who actively seek her out mostly do so for a few-second thrill, held tight in fast-moving carts that ride along rattling tracks. Those who awkwardly force themselves up into the air hide from her in cylinders and boxes of metal, not engaging in any kind of proper battle or dance at all.

Jack is crumpled on the ground, broken, dead. He gasps and wakes.

Gravity takes notice -- he cannot fly, but is not gone?

Jack gets up, weary. He half-stumbles, then starts walking, a little clumsy, a little slow.

Gravity follows him with her attention, alert and curious.

Jack feels worn and heavy, but suddenly he is walking more easily, for no reason that he knows of. Then a few steps dragging, the next ones effortless. He's not sure what's happening, but dying is still draining, so he sits down on the curb for a brief rest.

Gravity is very interested after her quick experimental touches. What a prize she has found! This human-creature is not so fragile, or not so permanently so. And it looks as if her cousin-rival time cannot get a firm grip on this human either, so surely she may play with him?

Jack is tired and alone in the dark night. Just sitting for a moment, he breathes deeply, head down, one hand curled on his knee.

Gravity's prize won't move, so she nudges him.

Jack feels his hand start to shift. Then it feels peculiarly -- weightless? He tries to pull it back down, but can't. His hand stays, wholly independent of his desires or actions, several inches above his knee. Jack feels no wind or mysterious breeze that could be causing this, and he doesn't think he's being mind-controlled by any alien device, so this is odd.

Gravity lifts the human-creature's hand, his chin. To practice her precision, she continues by lifting up the hair on his neck and on his head, the part of his coat he's not sitting on. She lets go, tugs again, and waits for a reaction.

Jack knows he isn't thinking too well (he suspects he rarely does right after he's been dead) but he doesn't feel a sense of malice in what's happening -- it seems more like curiosity. So he makes the decision to go along with it, maybe resist just a very little, and see what follows. Anyway, it's not as if whatever's going on can kill him, really.

Gravity feels her prize pushing against her, trying to move his head, press down his hand. He backs off, then tries to stretch and wiggle his fingers and she lets him. She makes herself syrup-thick around his hand, though not so dense that he can't move at all, and feels him slowly moving, exploring the resistance. Next, she flickers thin around his hand, making it fly up an inch or two, then bounce down, and feels him flutter his fingers at her. This is fun, they're playing together! When she concentrates on his hair, lifting a chunk of it to stand up straight and letting it fall, repeating that with another chunk, and another, she feels her human-creature shiver.

Jack is vaguely entertained by the sight and feeling of his hand moving through the air semi-independently and alternately much slower or faster than he's used to. But then whatever or whoever is doing this starts giving him some sort of crazy scalp-massage, which -- well, after a few moments of being surprised he says, "Oh. That feels good."

Gravity liked the way her prize shivered, so she does the hair thing some more, and he shivers again. After that, she tries to lift not just his coat but all the bits of his garments she can get to a little ways up from his skin, to see if that will yield a similar result.

Jack is getting the idea that what started as curious exploration is edging into something more playful, maybe even flirtatious and sensual. As a matter of principle, he strongly endorses playful, flirtatious, and sensual, so he says "How about if we take this somewhere more... comfortable and private?"

Gravity helps him up and lends a skip to his step.

++

Jack lets himself into his room, strips, lies down, and says, "Okay, if you still want to, not _too_ rough, please -- I already died once tonight -- but go ahead, let's play."

Gravity does. She delicately presses in on her prize, withdraws, squeezes again. She lightly bounces him up and down, strokes him hard, prods a little, softly hovers, sharply tugs. She makes herself gluey and thin by turn against his skin, lifts parts of him and lets go, turns and pushes and pulls his body, experimenting and exploring. When her pet makes wheezing noises that sound like distress, she gentles her touch to be more cautious, careful, tender. The more delicate contact makes him repeatedly shudder in that appealing way, and he starts making more noise again. The sounds start to have a different quality; neither what she is used to from her thrill-seekers nor from her so-fleeting loves who fall or jump or are pushed. The noise coming from him now is softer -- more like that of the leaves of trees in the wind. He is trembling like leaves do too, which she likes. The leaf-sounds become quick gasping ones, followed by a great shiver and a short harsh cry not unlike what she sometimes hears from pairs of birds dancing up against her. After that, her human goes still and lax in her hold.

Jack is very, very tired and feels a bit sore, but decides it's a kind of sore that's more good than bad, like he's felt thousands of times before. He feels himself drift off, so exhausted he only barely notices that he's floating an inch above the bed.

++

Gravity's attention is called away. She unfurls herself from around her prize and sets him down to ensure that the giant iceberg calving from the polar ice shelf drops into the ocean at exactly the correct angle and velocity. Then her attention is caught by an aircraft struggling out of her grip, a little earthquake, a vehicle tumbling off a bridge, an arrow falling, a plummeting hawk, a....

Much later, when she remembers to look for her human-creature, she cannot find him where he was, nor anywhere within her well. But she remembers him fondly, and hopes she'll meet him again someday.

 

+++

**Author's Note:**

> [story notes](http://nomanomynous.livejournal.com/2256.html#cutid7)  
> Feedback? Appreciated, here or [at LJ](http://nomanomynous.livejournal.com/2336.html).


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